Curb portrayal of gratuitous violence

I felt compelled to write in to state just how revolted I felt while and after reading a description and review of Joshua Oppenheimer’s documentary The Act of Killing.

Proposed in the first part of your paper’s review to be another example of the “craft of nonfiction filmmaking,” it is also soon thereafter described too as a staged opportunity for the Indonesian government-sanctioned assassin “stars” to recreate their violent murders for perhaps the only sake of fame and fortune.

Recording and showcasing historical events, especially in the hope of introspectively learning from humanity’s worse mistakes, certainly is important. However, at a time when we now know that graphic, violent audiovisual materials emotionally desensitize and increase aggression in many viewers, especially in children and adolescents, how could anything based on such vile acts be created in such a way then widely distributed, I wonder?

I am reminded again of just how much we have now collectively reached a mystifyingly complex dichotomy in human development. On the one hand, having now come to research and understand extremely well the roots of human attachment, emotional and mental health and peaceful conflict resolution — which collectively become the foundations for stable democracies — most countries and indeed the world as a whole through the United Nations and the World Health Organization have tried to enshrine every human’s right to these by stating commitments to child and family health and proper education along with the right to peace.

On the other hand, we are increasingly prey to a spiral of gratuitous violence and gore spewing from the commercial publishing, gaming and film industries, now so much more easily accessible because of our instantly accessible electronic connections. When questioned over their contents, many producers of this fare will invoke the free market, freedom of expression and individual rights and not question themselves as to any responsibilities to society.

While this all plays out, we have governments rolling out commission documents and statements on mental health, afraid of what the future holds for them in terms of huge public health liabilities but refusing, it seems, to connect many of these dots.

It seems to me that insisting on some controls on such materials ought to be possible by the appropriate funding and licensing bodies; indeed, just as we feel it important to regulate how much lead content there can be in our babies’ toys, for example.

Failing this, we can continue to hope that consumers will act critically when selecting viewing fare for themselves and their children.